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Kabul rolls back ban on telecast of terror attack pictures
Afghanistan rowed back yesterday from a total ban on media broadcasts of "disturbing" images from insurgent attacks or live pictures of security operations.
The new rules for media were agreed over the past week after an outcry over restrictions imposed on March 1 by the National Directorate of Security (NDS) spy agency that threatened to arrest journalists who film attacks.
The NDS had imposed the ban on international as well as local media, saying the images emboldened the militants and allowed them to gain tactical information. The move outraged Afghan media and rights groups who said the public would be deprived of vital security information.
The president's chief spokesman, Waheed Omer, said the new guidelines, hammered out over three days of meetings between officials and media representatives, would guarantee freedom from censorship while addressing government concerns about safety.
"There was a resolution ... which guarantees media freedom, with guarantees that nobody is censored, nobody is kept away from obtaining the information," Omer told a news conference. "In the meantime, some of our concerns have also been addressed."